What to Do When You’ve Tried Everything and Your Baby Still Isn’t Sleeping
There’s a certain kind of tired that comes from doing your best for a long time. From tweaking bedtime, adjusting naps, and lying awake at night wondering how it can still feel this hard when you’ve already tried so much.
It often shows up around this time of year. A new year arrives and, almost without noticing, many parents start to feel that this might be the moment things are meant to change. The reset. The fresh start. The point at which sleep should finally feel more manageable.
And yet here you are. Still tired. Still waking. Still doing your best through broken nights and full days.
If this is where you’ve landed, it’s important to say this clearly - nothing has gone wrong.
Despite Doing So Much, Baby Sleep Still Feels Hard
Most parents who find themselves here aren’t sitting back and hoping for the best. They’ve read the advice, made thoughtful changes, paid close attention to patterns, and tried to support their baby’s sleep alongside everything else that fills their days.
When nothing seems to shift, it’s very easy to assume you’ve missed something. That there must be a better routine, a different bedtime, or a crucial piece of advice that everyone else has already found. But more often than not, the parents who feel most stuck are the ones who have been trying the hardest.
Baby sleep doesn’t move in straight lines. It settles, unravels, reshapes itself, and changes again, often without much warning. You can support it carefully and still find nights wobbling or progress stalling for a while. That doesn’t mean you’ve failed, and it doesn’t mean your baby is doing something wrong.
If this feels familiar, you might find comfort in “Is Your Baby Really Sleep-Deprived? The Truth About Normal Baby Sleep (and Why You’re So Tired)” - it explores why broken sleep doesn’t always mean your baby isn’t getting enough sleep and why that mismatch can be so exhausting.
Why Trying Harder Doesn’t Always Improve Night Sleep
A large part of the exhaustion many parents carry isn’t only about how often their baby wakes, but about the pressure placed on every night. When sleep becomes something you feel responsible for fixing, each wake-up can start to feel personal.
Much of the advice aimed at tired parents reinforces this idea. It suggests that longer night stretches are something you can create if you just find the right timing, routine, or method. That if sleep hasn’t improved yet, it must be because something hasn’t been done consistently or correctly enough.
But babies and young toddlers aren’t systems to optimise. Their sleep is still developing and is influenced by biology, temperament, nervous system maturity, and daily rhythms. Longer stretches tend to emerge gradually, supported over time, rather than being switched on through effort alone.
If you’ve ever wondered whether the chase for the “perfect sleep” might be adding to the pressure instead of relieving it, “Is There a Gold Standard for Baby Sleep?” might be a balm. It dismantles the myth of the “ideal sleep pattern” and invites you to see healthy sleep as individual and evolving, not something to be achieved overnight
What Actually Helps Longer Night Stretches Build
This doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can influence. It means the changes that genuinely help tend to be quieter and less dramatic than the advice shouting the loudest online.
For many families, progress comes from:
Understanding what’s developmentally normal at their baby’s age
Looking at the whole day rather than focusing only on night waking
Supporting rhythm and timing without rigid rules
Reducing pressure around sleep instead of increasing it
Often, it isn’t about adding another strategy, but about letting go of expectations that were never realistic to begin with.
When parents feel calmer and more grounded around sleep, nights often begin to shift in small but meaningful ways. Not because they’re trying harder, but because the weight has been lifted.
If you’ve been holding tight to the idea that sleep must improve “once you get this right,” this blog, “Why Calm Matters Most for Baby and Toddler Sleep” can help soften that perspective and remind you that calm creates space for rest to grow.
If You’re Still Tired, It Might Be Time for a Different Perspective
If you’ve tried everything and you’re still tired, the answer isn’t necessarily to do more. Sometimes it’s about seeing sleep differently.
Understanding which parts of baby sleep are within your influence and which parts will come with time can create far more space than another checklist ever could. When sleep stops being something to fix, it often becomes easier to support.
This matters especially in January, when there’s a strong cultural pull to set goals and overhaul routines. Baby sleep rarely responds well to that kind of pressure. It moves forward at its own pace, and often does so more easily when expectations soften.
A Calmer Way to Think About Longer Night Stretches
For parents who are worn down by nights that feel unpredictable, I’ve created a free guide called How to Get Longer Night Stretches With Your Baby and you can get your copy here.
It isn’t a schedule, a promise of twelve uninterrupted hours, or a method that asks you to ignore your instincts. Instead, it explains how longer stretches usually build over time, what can support them naturally, and how to take some of the pressure out of nights that feel endlessly repetitive.
The aim isn’t to make sleep perfect, but to help it feel more manageable, more understandable, and far less loaded with self-doubt.
You Don’t Need to Get Sleep “Sorted” This Year
January doesn’t need you to overhaul your baby or yourself. You don’t need a dramatic reset or a brand-new routine to be doing a good job.
Often, the most helpful next step is understanding what’s within your control, what will come with time, and what can be softened for now. From there, things often begin to move forward in a way that feels steadier and far less exhausting.
Next steps
You can download How to Get Longer Night Stretches With Your Baby below if nights have been feeling heavy and you’d like a calmer place to start.
